I. Barber stub tail restoration

[xiaotuzi]

I found this blade at a flea market in the spring of 2016 and almost 2 years later now I finally got around to working on it. It's an Isaac Barber stub tail that was in pretty rough shape with significant corrosion and pitting. It originally had an etching that was very light and half rusted away, I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. I tried seeing if it was worth saving but... a moment of silence for the etching please.

I made some new scales out of honey horn patterned after an old scale I had off of an Instanter stub tail that I restored a while back. The blades are almost identical shape so this worked well.

Here's the blade as I was almost done hand sanding. Look closely at the back side blade face and tang and you will see an anomaly in the steel running the length of the blade. I don't know much about the forging process but I imagine something happened there and this was the result.

Something else about this blade that was a bit of a challenge, and then wasn't after all, was the shape of the tang. This is one of those that's only tapered on one side (the tang stamp side) and the other side is even with the blade. Like this from a top view..

I messed around doing multiple test fits and mock-up's and couldn't get the blade to center due to the taper on only one side of the tang. I tried adding an extra washer on one side and it didn't really help plus I'm not a fan of that anyway so I scrapped that idea. I finally decided that I just didn't care that much if it centers while closing and I would just go ahead and pin it. Lo and behold once it was properly pinned it centers! You know, I sometimes think I have these things figured out and then something like this. Well, it all worked out but I can't really say how except luck maybe.
I'll get the finished pictures up next...